Vim & Vigor - Spring 2013 - North Mississippi - (Page 6)

Paige Heady any suspicious bumps or pain. “I had to regain my confidence. I had to remind myself that this is very rare,” she says. “The odds of it happening again are very slim.” A Lucky Find Paige Heady of Smithville considers herself lucky to have multiple sclerosis (MS). She makes that claim because it was through her MS that her doctor discovered a brain tumor. Heady was only 25 years old when she was diagnosed with MS, a disease of the brain and spinal cord that can cause problems with muscle control and strength, vision, balance and sensation. She was newly married and on vacation when the symptoms started. “I started having pain in one eye, and I thought my contact must have scratched my eye,” she says. “But I also had a headache. When I got back in town and went to the doctor, it was optic neuritis. I did my research and knew that MS was one of the causes of optic neuritis, so I had a good idea.” The symptoms of MS are caused by inflammation in the brain and spinal cord, and destruction of 6 Spring 2 013 the protein coating, called myelin, that surrounds and protects nerve fibers. This damage disrupts the normal flow of messages through the brain, spinal cord and nerves that control a person’s movement and feelings. Heady’s attitude has always been “to fight my way through it,” so when she was extremely fatigued around Christmas 2009, she just assumed she had overdone it traveling and celebrating the holidays. In February 2010, she went to see her MS specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville for a routine visit. He ordered an MRI brain scan to see whether some new medication he had prescribed was helping. “On the MRI, he saw one lesion that was not responding to treatment,” she says. “Of course the lesion wasn’t responding to the MS treatment because it wasn’t MS.” A biopsy (tissue analysis) revealed anaplastic astrocytoma, a type of brain tumor which has symptoms similar to MS. After surgery at Vanderbilt to remove as much of the tumor as possible, she did 40 radiation treatments and 12 rounds of oral chemotherapy in Tupelo to eradicate the rest. After her surgery and

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Spring 2013 - North Mississippi

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2013 - North Mississippi
Contents
Opening Thoughts
Brain Power
No Bones About It
You're the Star
Heart-to-Heart
Lighten Up!
Have No Fear
Work It!
What Are the Chances?
9 Symptoms Never to Ignore
When Allergies Attack
Virtual Health
Botox: A New Miracle Drug?
The Doctor Will See You Now
Catch the Spirit

Vim & Vigor - Spring 2013 - North Mississippi